Read This First This site is my exploration of Steampunk ... and the beginning of a very sophisticated Art Fashion Project. I have finally settled on a combination of two sub-styles of Steampunk for my project:
- Oriental, The Far East
- Post-Apocalypse
If you haven't visited this blog before, start at the bottom of the Recent Posts list below or you'll probably have no chance of following how this has evolved, or the context within which I'm working.
I believe this is a fairly unchartered combination so please let me know of any links you find that might be even remotely close. Please also feel free to add lots of comments because they too are an important part of my inspiration.
Also, please come and add me on FaceBook or take a look at my other site, Pattern School.
Stuart Anderson
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By Stuart, on January 17th, 2012
If you’re a friend on Facebook you’ll have seen my on again, off again efforts with the Oriental Steampunk pattern research … I’m using the Thai close-fit bodice block as my basic pattern as I’ve now further developed it to fit the Western figure type but still look Thai (see previous entry). Getting this right has been incredibly complicated, so for those who think it just looks like a simple bodice block draped from a dummy, it isn’t … and you should be really impressed! The multiple revisions I’ve gone through to get to this point have been due to movement requirements … yep that’s right … movement! Stop and think about your last holiday to somewhere in South East Asia … did you notice that most people wore fairly normal Western clothes and moved very freely … but those exact same people moved completely differently in cultural dress? It’s the same theory, really, as the Western corset … only in the case of the Orient the styles were defined by the required movement rather than the movement being defined by the styles! People actually designed the clothes to make women move in a particular way … for me this is an enormous discovery!
And this is where my Steampunk criteria kicks in. My clothing designs need to show some relevance to the movement style of South East Asian women during the Colonial days … yeah that’s right … I’ve completely lost the plot … Steampunk isn’t this obsessed with so much detail and research … it’s retro-futuristic fantasy … yeah, yeah, I get it. But please understand I’m a pattern maker first, fashion designer second and a Steampunk fan third. For me, my Oriental Steampunk project is more about studying South East Asian fashion than it is about Steampunk … Steampunk is the style I want to apply to my research as I play with this project. That said I’m almost equally obsessed with Steampunk … almost.
OK take a quick browse through the images below. The first is a self explanatory toile from the pattern in my previous post. The next set of images are models of an upward flared collar. These collars are most instantly recognisable as Gothic (circa 1150AD), which evolved into many forms until being mostly abandoned in the Late Elizabethan Era (circa 1580AD) … way to early for Steampunk, yes? Not at all, these collars were worn by Qing Dynasty Princesses and women of high standing (Circa 1780AD) as part of a cloak or cape for travel in cold weather or on boats … and for the sake of completeness, this design goes all the way back to the Wei Dynasty (AD220—AD589) … way before the Europeans!
           
I’ve made so many models because I’m experimenting with the amount of flare, the height of the collar at center front and back, the inclination of the mid plane, how ovate or circular the neck needs to be and how to keep all this correct and still conform to fitting the shoulders of my Thai close-fit bodice block …. and on top of this you need to understand that as the garment is tensioned by movement in such a close fitting garment (with heavily interfaced linings) the collar can change shape …. I’ve had to search for just the right mid plane inclination to prevent distorion … and I have to admit much of this was trial and error in the end.
Another feature of Asian pattern making is a square plane armhole … this means that when you look at the armhole from the centre-front of the garment the hole looks like a perfectly flat plane, rather than a curved plane as you have with Western armholes. This again is something you really have to model to see while the garment has no tension beyond that creating the shape … I was able to get fairly close by sketching on the pattern I draped on my mannequin. Now let me give you a freebie … my observations have shown me that you can ONLY get a perfectly square armhole plane when the front and back armhole are symmetrical … that is, if you want it to stay relatively square during movement … and the only way to achieve perfect symmetry on a Thai block is if the sleeve is tilted forward about 15º and the sleeve is tilted outward about 20º as shown in this image. Then it’s very easy to make the perfectly circular sleeve so common in asian clothing … and even easier still to modify. However I haven’t yet worked out how to twist the half raglan line to make a softer shoulder.
The very last image shows my first attempt at taking my earlier Miss Emily corset block lines and adapting them to suit the Asian figure type … this was version 3! …. the lower wedge panel will actually end up removed … it’s currently there to hold shape in place.
The very back model in the model line up is the first stage in creating the cape … to which I wish to add the shoulder flare from this image … and then integrate the whole lot into the bodice as a single garment … at least this is where my creativity is headed on the quest to create my evil female Oriental Steampunk Pirate Captain fashion range!
Here’s something to look at …
 
 
By Stuart, on September 12th, 2011
 I’m headed home to Australia shortly. I’ve been in the South East Orient for six months now and I’ve learned things that transcend well beyond fashion and culture. People in Thailand and Burma do not resent colonialism in the slightest (as I was led to believe by one very misinformed individual) … if anything they embrace the various colonial buildings as heritage items and elements of colonial fashion still exist in their own traditional and contemporary clothing. I’ve come to see that people here have more problems with the varying colour of skin and race of their nearest neighbours than they do with anything Western … something I find particularly sad of Buddhist nations. But without doubt, the Orient is overwhelmingly a region of love and compassion, beauty, rich colours, mystery and aromas that fill your mind with memories of ancient times still alive today. I love this region … Northern Thailand … the gateway to everything in South East Asia with it’s own international airport giving you flights to everywhere within a few hours at most … some exotic places in less than one hour.
Spend a few seconds looking at each of the thumbnails to the right and feel the textures, colours and aromas … each can elicit an emotion if you look long enough.
Strangely the gold (center right), seemed out of place at first … everything I’d been told about the Orient was brass and silver … I even had some people try to tell me that gold wasn’t a characteristic of the Orient at all … everything was silver! Well that was the most misleading piece of information ever! Sure there was a little bit of silver to be found in the markets and tourist traps, but there was certainly more brass and copper … but overwhelmingly, everywhere you looked was gold. Thinking back to the days I was criticised for even considering Oriental steampunk as a costuming concept, I knew then that gold was predominant …. I’d seen many movies, documentaries and antiques … and indeed I had researched a lot of traditional costume. Gold is the predominant highlight colour of most textiles in China, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos.
But that said, here are a few brass pieces I’ve dug up from a place called Wode Collection in Baan Tawai, Hangdong.
   
These items are used for decorating furniture items, but I don’t see why they can’t be used in clothing (except the telephony device of course).
 
Anyway …. meet Pearl (white) and Foxy (red) … my two perfect Australian size 8 and 10 dressmaking dummies that cost only Aus$25 each complete with stand!!! It would cost that much just to get them delivered in Australia. I bought these because I wanted to practice making dress blocks using Asian design lines, dart positions and ease allowances, but to suit western figure types. I used the data I had collected from Pattern School to establish my sizes, sizing envelopes and figure shape and then modified the dummies by stuffing them with polyester pillow filler (compressed) to create the figure shape I was after. In the left image Pearl has now been modified (see tummy and bum), whereas in the other image you can see that Foxy is still as she walked out of the shop. Pearl is also wearing one of my early bodice blocks in paper, complete with close fit mandarin collar and full round sleeve. Dart positions and ease are what makes a garment look oriental … not so much the fabric (although I know most will disagree with me). The average Asian body is a very different shape to the Western body. They have a proportionally shorter nape to waist and a longer waist to hip … ie the waist is higher on the body. Asian women have a smaller bust and a higher underbust. Asian women are significantly less ovate around the ribcage, and the base of the ribcage is closer to the illiac crest of the hip bone, which is again more forward than her Western counterpart. Asian women are also rounder in the tummy (that’s rounder, not bigger). They have a much smaller bottom that crests toward the center back instead of toward the hip as in Western women. Asian women almost always (even in the younger women) have a fat pocket above the back hip which can go as far up as the ribcage, which when combined with a short nape to waist can result in an almost not existent waist shaping. All these points have resulted in darting and ease being placed very differently in Asia.
You could make a garment out of Western fabric but using the Oriental design lines and the garment would still look distinctly Oriental. To explain exactly how the lines, ease and position are different would give away too much of my research … the astute should be able to work it out from the description above, but I’m not about to give my work away to just any amateur right now. Especially as I can now reproduce this look and make it fit the Western figure type! So to give you an idea without giving you the answer (unless you know your patterns of course) … here’s a slightly distorted (to prevent copying) version of my block
I’m also working on a number of designs right now, some of which I’m already having made (see below) and many many which are still on the drawing board. The current designs are traditionally Oriental (mainly Thai) at the moment, complete with ruffles, pleats and embroidered flowers … I want to get all that right before I turn them steampunk … maybe one day I’ll get approached to do the costuming for a movie?
By Stuart, on August 3rd, 2011
The following images I photographed from a Burmese magazine called Hello Madam … I cannot find this particular magazine in their back orders but I fully intend to buy every copy they’ve printed. The magazine is about current fashion trends and suppliers for traditional clothing and current interpretations/styles using traditional fabrics and methods. For designers and dress makers its a book full of pictures they can put in their waiting rooms for customers to read and get ideas. Thailand and Cambodia have their equivalents, but their is something very different about the Burmese fashion magazines that immediately captures my attention … the inclusion of colonial fashion! If you’re anything like my anti-Orientalism crowd you had better get ready for your ultimate argument defeat … the Burmese have re-interpreted and INCLUDED western colonial fashion styles into what they now call their cultural dress. How? Let’s start with the prevalence of the empire line (I mean how more colonial can you get than the word ‘empire’?). Fifty percent of the magazine that I viewed had empire lines (ok oly a few below have empire lines but I want to rembeber each of these dresses specifically for future reference) … while some of the on line magazines do not feature it as highly, the dress maker I am using (who is Dai Burmese) talked at great length about the inclusion of the styles from colonial times.
You need to remember that the average Burmese woman does not wear these clothes … these are the domain of the upper classes. Back in colonial times, to be upper class meant you were English! For the Burmese upper class, that meant adopting and reinterpreting colonial styles such that they’d still look Burmese but match the class of the British. Call me crazy, but the dress makers all tell the same story and its right there in the images.
Then we have other features, like the little pleat tucks under the bust at the empire line and the panelling around the bodice under the empire line … unknown in Burma before colonisation. The follow images are almost a mix of Thai (Dai) and Regency. It may be hard for people to see completely (or maybe accept) without the history lessons I’ve had access to in my travels throughout South East Asia but it’s there! Take a look through the online magazines at Hello Madam … even if you aren’t interested in Orientalism, there’s still some great inspiration and imagery there.
         
Lastly, what you don’t see in this magazine (Yangon/Rangoon) is something that Dai (Shan State) dress makers have been doing for at least 100 years (so I’m told). They are adding components of brass and leather. The brass components are typically refashioned furniture clamps and locks used as buttons and belt buckles, but sometimes they’ve used things like lock back plates and book and box corners. This has come more out of necessity than as a fashion style. The Dai have had to make use of anything they can find … which is odd considering these refashioned items are used in upper class fashion … but poverty is a relative thing. I recently went to a furnishings market in Hang Dong called Ban Tawaii … nirvana for anyone who likes Thai home decor … and there was a market in there called Wode Collection which sells all of these type of brass fixtures … and yes I’m openly linking it for all of you to see because I know steampunk fans will just have to buy stuff here.
 
The leather usage was a more astounding … I was told I could replace piping at the empire line wiith a leather strap and for larger busted women it was extra supportive with the same leather strap in a harness over the shoulder … WTF?? … yes folks … the whole current trend of leather harness accessories has been going on for 200 years in Burma! It’s also possible to get the frogmouth clasps to be replaced with small leather straps and buckles … although this is generally done with naturally coloured cottons (hello Steampunk!) instead of on the silks. They will put little pieces of leather anywhere … the leathers used being cow, elephant, snake or crocodile.
Basically every component I’ve been looking for from Oriental steampunk already exists in my Grandmaternal home of Shan State in Northern Myanmar. Now I need to think long and hard about where to go next. I’m having a few sample dresses being made in a fairly simple modern thai style to test out my dress makers and to test out my patterns and theory on the Asian figure types (grading and ease is very very different to the Western body type). Below are the sketches I used at the dress makers (I don’t have my own machines here either) … nothing complicated, but the silks are phenominal.
Last but not least, I also recently went to Cambodia to see the Angkor temples and Apsara dancers. It wasn’t quite what I was looking for from a fashion perspective, but as an history and cultural experience it was mind blowing … I think Angkor, Siem Reap is one of the must see destinations before you die!
   
By Stuart, on June 9th, 2011
Where the hell am I? If you follow my Facebook you’ll know that I’m once again in Thailand. This time exploring contacts with respect to fashion and also a deeper understanding of culture and human nature. I’m completely and utterly absorbed by Asia. I’m also planning some side trips into Burma and Cambodia. I’m studying Thai, Chinese and Dai language. I’m visiting tailors and dressmakers. I’m scouring markets for all sorts of accessories. I’m visiting every temple I come across. I’m going to every show I can find.
I’m also getting very fat eating every exotic food I can get my fork or chop sticks into!
A few nights ago I went to a Thai dance show and dinner which in itself was somewhat inspiring, but there was one dance which was simply amazing … below is a video of part of that dance. The dance is performed by a Shan dancer … a lady of the self declared Shan state in northern Burma (Myanmar). The Shan are a Dai culture currently under threat from the military regime running the country. My friend Mook who you might have seen in my Facebook photos is also a Shan Dai … as was my grandmother. There are also Shan Dai in Yunnan in the south of China bordering Burma.
Without really wanting to get political, I’d like to encourage everyone to take a closer look at Shan State in Google and see just what’s going on there … other pages are;
By Stuart, on May 12th, 2011
I’m back in Australia now after my second trip to Chiang Mai. This time I also went to Laos, Burma and China as well … returning to my base in Chiang Mai, Thailand each time. I also went to Bangkok and Phuket (neither of which I liked very much). The difference this time for me was the chance to actually learn the cultures. My first few weeks I travelled with Yuxiang (my Chinese friend) who, although she tried hard, never quite managed to get me to understand the cultural differences … perhaps because we stuck to the more touristy type places and attractions. The last four weeks I was deeply immersed in multiple cultures simultaneously … I can’t begin to give you an appreciation of the things I’ve done so perhaps it’s best if you check out all the holiday photos on my facebook page. Here are a few of the places, people and things I’ve seen.
        
        
Ok so why? Why did I spend a second 9.5 weeks of my life wandering around Asia? Surely there are easier ways to find inspiration for a steampunk project right? Well yes. I went the first time to source fabrics and components and then I fell in love with the place. My second trip was more about experiencing and understanding culture. I am a quarter Burmese (my maternal grandmother was Dai Burmese – currently Shan State). My mother was born in India (Simla). So for me this was also about discovering a little personal history.
I’ve often been criticised (both on this blog and elsewhere) for my use of the words Oriental and Orientalism. I made no apology for the use of the words back then because I believed they were the correct usage. Now I am even less likely to apologise because it is intensely clear to me that the term Oriental is not derogatory, but in fact a celebration of and to many Asian cultures. There have been discussions that because steampunk is Victorian (open to debate), then Oriental steampunk must be a celebration of colonialism … this is not true at all. If anything I really pity those who cannot separate colonialism from orientalism.
Something that you really need to understand when entering this debate is the feelings of those who are alive NOW. Especially those living in these places and subject to the many concerns of my critics. Well the answer to all these concerns evaded me for some time until I visited a market outside of Chiang Mai where I found the locals blending everything that is Asian with everything that is Western. I saw Indian tailors making mens’ Western suits from Thai silks and adorned with Burmese silver and gems. I saw the most amazing blend of Thai, Chinese and Western fabrics making Western cocktail dresses in a fusion of Thai and Western style. I visited many Thai silk manufacturers who had examples of perfectly Western clothes made from their silks. But most of all I found people to talk to about how they viewed Orientalism … Thais, Chinese and Burmese … people whose families were once (albeit a long time ago) subject to colonialism .. people who are now more concerned about the ‘evils’ of Americanism than they have ever been about British colonialism. Strangely however, they do not see themselves as victims at all … that mentality is not within any of their cultures. It seems my critics (both Asian and Western) have been so modified by the Western view point on life that they’ve made some very incorrect assumptions … they seem to know very little about the feelings of those of whom they talk. THIS my friends is what I have learned in my travels … if you have virtuous intentions in your heart it does not matter what you do … and … it does not matter what you do, if someone is hurt by your virtuous actions then this is their choice to be hurt … ie; you have not hurt them, they are hurting themselves … it is them that need to address the issues of concerns, not you. This comes from the very people who my critics believe are offended by my project. Sorry critics, but these people love my project … many of them want to be a part of it! So there … nyah!
So stand by everyone … I’ve got several weeks of inspiration crammed into my skull that needs to be extracted with medical precision if I want to make use of it all.
By Stuart, on April 7th, 2011
Hi everyone! I’m currently in China, still on my second trip through the orient, returning to Thailand tomorrow. Internet is very hard to come by and extremely slow/filtered when you actually find some. I’m loving every single minute of this … ok not every minute, but most of them.
China is nothing like you’ve been told … many things much better, a few things difficult beyond comprehension. Beijing, for example, is a very clean, fresh modern city with everything you’d expect in New york or London … only cleaner … yes there you go … CLEANER … not the smelly polluted place the news keeps telling you! Even the more rural elements were tidy and fresh. My only real dislike of China so far is the way hotels charge you for your complete stay plus extra as a deposit up front … this would wipe out most peoples credit cards before they even got a chance to shop … then on check out they have the nerve to charge you again for the bill and say they’ll refund the deposit only if the billed amount goes through … and that refund can take days … not the instant that they say it will. I find this incredibly rude and ethically wrong … but it is their way, they all do it.
China is also not (at least visually) the militant state people claim it is either … I didn’t see any soldiers with guns, just a few very helpful police here and there … I see many more police in Sydney, Australia!!! The traffic in China is seriously deadly crazy however! There are many many photos on my facebook page if you’d like to see them … so for now here’s the Great FireWall of China, in Badaling … very beautiful.
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